a star, so bright you blind me
by its-amagicalplace
Summary: When a mysterious necklace is discovered within ancient ruins, a SHIELD team is assigned to work out where it originated. During their research however, they accidentally activate the device, calling to another realm, resulting in the arrival to earth of an otherworldly being. [Stardust AU! Philinda, Skyelance, and a little bit of Traina.]
1. Chapter 1

Skye Coulson was currently a little preoccupied.

Work was, in all honesty, pretty slow.

For once.

She didn't have any assignments on the go, and the thing she was meant to be doing - filling in the paperwork from her last retrieval op - was not appealing to her one little bit.

Nobody chose a life of paperwork.

But the man currently stood between her legs, sucking what would probably turn out to be a very-large-but-totally-worth-it hickey into her collarbone, definitely was appealing to her.

So there.

Lance wrapped his hands tighter around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he continued lavishing his affections onto the exposed skin of her neck.

This was risky. They were at work, and despite practically the whole building knowing they were together, getting caught like this in her office would make for some awkward conversations at the next progress meeting.

Either that, or they'd be dragged up in front of the review board for "inappropriate conduct in the workplace".

They'd been there before.

"Skye?"

The sound of Phil Coulson's voice drifting through from the office next door made Skye pull back from Lance with a groan.

She kissed him lightly on the lips once more, before rising from her desk, and smoothing her shirt down at the sides, checking all her buttons were definitely done up. She looked apologetically at him as he pouted in response, pushing him lightly away with a small smile.

"Don't be long" Lance murmured, letting go of her hand at the last minute, before moving around her desk, and throwing himself down into the plush leather chair she had managed to acquire from one of the conference rooms upstairs.

When she glanced back towards him, making sure her hair was covering her neck and shoulders properly, he winked at her, stretching his limbs out around him, and bringing his legs up to rest on the edge of her desk.

Skye rolled her eyes as he grinned lazily after her retreating form.

Idiot.

She sauntered into Phil's office with an innocent smile, twisting her engagement ring around her finger as she walked, before coming to a stop in front of him.

"Hey Dad, what's up?"

He fixed her with a pointed stare, and she knew he was well aware of what had probably been going on in the room next door to him only moments before, but before he could reply, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons entered the room behind her, clearly straight from the labs downstairs; they were still wearing their white coats, and Fitz had a pair of safety goggles around his neck.

"You requested to see us, Sir?" Jemma asked, as her and Fitz came to a halt either side of Skye.

"Yes. Close the door."

Fitz pushed it shut, before returning to his place on Skye's right.

"I want you all to stop whatever it is you're working on right away."

"We have a new assignment?" Fitz asked, stepping nervously from foot to foot. They had been working on developing an improved method of cloaking for SHIELD aircraft, so whatever was going on must have been important; the cloaking was always a priority.

Phil nodded, opening the black plastic file in front of him, and straightening his tie.

"We received a phone-call this morning from a team of archaeologists, at a dig-site in rural China. They came across an interesting piece of jewellery during their excavation of a previously undiscovered set of ruins… ruins which date back several hundred years."

Phil held out a photograph of a necklace for Skye and Fitzsimmons to see, and Skye raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"That doesn't look like it belongs in ancient ruins."

"Exactly."

The picture was of what was obviously a necklace. It had a thick golden chain, and by her estimations Skye guessed it would probably rest, when worn, just above the breastbone.

But the pendant on it was what was drawing her attention more. The jewel was a largely cut stone, clear as glass, with dozens of facets reflecting light in every direction.

If she'd had no idea at all about rocks, Skye would have said it was a diamond, but after comparing it to the one on her finger, she knew she was mistaken.

It was the most unusual thing she had ever seen, and it became obvious why the original team that found it had been confused.

"Do we know where it originated, Sir?" Jemma asked, looking questioningly at the page in front of her with the same expression as Skye.

"No," Phil replied, putting the picture back into the file, and closing it once more. Three sets of eyes then returned to his face. "Which is why it is now in SHIELD's possession. Basic tests at the discovery site suggest it's giving off a small gamma radiation signal -"

" - Radiation?" Skye asked with slightly raised brows. "Like the tesseract did?"

She crossed her arms in front of her; everyone knew the stories of the tesseract, and how, when it had been stolen by Loki several years ago, Dr. Banner had been able to trace it based on the gamma frequency it was constantly emitting.

"Yes," Phil clarified, "But not as strong. Even so, it shouldn't be doing that, so until we find out why, it has been officially classed as an 0-8-4."

"And nothing good ever came from one of those" Fitz muttered quietly, glancing across Skye to Jemma. The two had studied a variety of 0-8-4's in the past, and not one had turned out to have a positive function or purpose.

"Maybe this is the exception?" Jemma suggested. She always managed to look on the bright side of things, even if nobody else could see one.

"What do you want me to do?" Skye asked, all business now that an assignment was in hand. Most of the time at work, they were Agent Skye and Agent Coulson - she insisted on the differentiation to keep things easy, despite sharing a surname - but once they were on their own time they were just Dad and Skye.

"I want you to research," Phil told her, standing up from his chair and leaning his hands down on his desk. "Dig up any information you can find about it. Trawl SHIELD databases and go through old files. Reach out to any contacts you might have that could shed some light on why it was buried within rocks hundreds of years old. Ask Hunter too," he added with a look that told Skye he still disapproved in her taste in men. "He might have some contacts who deal in this kind of jewellery."

She nodded, uncrossing her arms and pulling her phone out of her pocket, immediately unlocking the screen and beginning to type.

Phil then turned to face each of the two scientists. "Fitz, Simmons, the necklace is on its way here as we speak, being flown by Agent Triplett in a private SHIELD jet. When it arrives, I need you take it down to the lab and run some tests. See if you can find any… hidden properties, something the original team on the ground may have missed."

"Yes Sir."

"Any developments, come straight to me, okay?"

"Is this a secret mission?" Skye asked, glancing up momentarily; she knew the protocols that surrounded certain assignments in their business.

"For now, no. But if anything of significance is to come up, then that status may be changed."

"Righto," she replied, nodding at him with a grin. "I'll get on it."

"Us too," Jemma added, looking sideways at Fitz for confirmation he was in agreement with her.

"Dismissed."

All three left the room, and set about their relative tasks.

Phil watched them go, before opening the file once more. He pulled the photograph back out, the paper already beginning to crease after being handled so much, and he stared at it with a frown. There was something familiar about the pendant, but he just couldn't work out why.

Hopefully, his team would find something out. After all, they were SHIELD - unusual objects? This is what they did.

* * *

**I'm aiming for 20 chapters. It's already planned out. If you could let me know your thoughts in the comments box, it would mean a lot! Thank you :)**


	2. Chapter 2

Skye arrived back in her office to find not only had Lance not moved from her chair, but he appeared to be currently dozing, his head resting against the leather back, and his mouth slightly open.

She shook her head fondly at him; he was such an idiot, but despite her dad's reservations, Skye loved him.

She casually leaned back against her office door, letting her weight slam it closed, and Lance jumped out of his sleep at looked at her groggily.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" she asked innocently, before smirking as she pulled another chair over to her desk, and dragged her laptop across, opening the lid and entering her password.

"No, I was just…" he yawned suddenly, stretching out, and Skye shook her head again. "Okay, I was napping."

"Clearly."

"What did your dad want?"

She drummed her fingers on the desk as she loaded up the SHIELD file database. "He wants me to research this necklace they found in some dig-site in China, apparently it's 0-8-4."

Lance raised his eyebrows. "That bad?" He may not have been a fully fledged SHIELD agent, but even he knew what those ominous three numbers meant.

Skye just shrugged, her eyes not leaving her laptop screen. "I don't know yet, but I mean, it's just a necklace. Doesn't look like the device of death or anything."

"Appearances can be deceptive."

"Yeah, as I found out when I met you" she muttered in response, entering her search criteria and hitting return again.

"Meaning?" he asked, eyebrows raised slightly as he watched her working.

"Meaning" Skye emphasised, scrolling through the new options that had appeared. "When Jemma told me she knew a British guy I might like, I was expecting a suave sophisticated English gentleman." She leaned forwards towards her screen, and clicked on a link that looked hopeful, before flicking her gaze back up to meet his playfully. "And instead I got you."

"I'd be offended, love" he grinned, leaning back in the chair with his arms folded. "But you still agreed to marry me."

"And boy will I probably live to regret that decision."

"Yeah" he sighed dramatically, shrugging his shoulders at her. "You probably will."

* * *

"Hey girl, I heard you were waiting for this?"

Antoine Triplett walked into the laboratory, with a black box, and a smile. He leaned casually against one of the free benches, grinning at Jemma as she looked up from the tablet she was typing on.

"Trip," she exclaimed, mirroring his smile and standing up, placing the tablet back onto her desk before walking over to greet him. "So good of you to bring it."

"No problem, got myself a sweet little ride too, private jet, all the way from China… not too bad."

Jemma took the box from him, and placed it onto the workspace next to them both. It was a lot heavier than she had been anticipating, and as she lifted the lid and peered at the necklace inside, her eyes widened in surprise.

"It's even more beautiful than the photographs Agent Coulson showed us" she murmured, looking in wonder at the jewellery in front of her.

"Now that's a big ass diamond" Trip exclaimed, shaking his head slightly in disbelief. He hadn't seen the actual necklace in person until that moment, having been handed the sealed box in the state he had brought it in by the authorities in China. As a SHIELD agent, he knew: ask no questions. So he hadn't, he had simply followed orders and transported it straight back with him.

"I don't think that's a diamond," Jemma muttered, frowning a little as she stared at it. "It's too clear." She stared for a moment longer, before walking across the room, picking up the tablet from her desk and proceeding to set up a new file for the current project.

"Any ideas what it could be?"

She shook her head, glancing back up to meet his expectant gaze. "I'm not an expert in this field, but I'll have Fitz run some tests, see if he can work out the molecular structure and identify the compounds involved in the stone."

Trip just nodded, and the two stood in comfortable silence until there was a noise at the other end of the room.

"Agent Triplett" Fitz greeted, as he walked through the glass doors opposite them and proceeded to come straight over.

"Hey Fitz, brought you guys a little present."

He gestured back to the box next to him, and Fitz wandered closer, peering inside and raising an eyebrow.

"It doesn't look like an 0-8-4."

"It's an 0-8-4?!" Trip exclaimed in shock; the agent who had sent him had proceeded to miss that part out of his request. "Damn, I had that thing sat next to me the whole flight back."

"Has anybody handled it?" Jemma looked up again, this time a slight furrow in her brow.

Trip dug out a notebook from his back pocket, and checked up on the details he had written there whilst he'd had the plane on autopilot. "Yes, two member of the dig-team held it when they first took it out of the ground, but when they discovered the minor levels of radiation - which, by the way, I have no idea why they were testing for - they proceeded to leave it alone."

"They probably had sensors just as a precaution" Fitz murmured, putting on a pair of safety goggles and gloves, before ensuring the work surfaces were all cleared and ready for use. "Some teams use them to detect the presence of nuclear radiation on a site, especially if there are things like power-plants nearby."

"Did those who handled it have any side-effects?" Jemma asked, frowning as she watched Fitz pick the necklace up with a pair of prongs, placing it onto the bench in front of him. The gold chain clattered against the surface noisily, but once it was settled, he removed the tongs, and took the box off the worksurface to give themselves more room.

"Not that I'm aware of" Trip continued, closing the notepad again and returning it to his pocket. "Team on the ground found nothing out of the ordinary, other than the fact this thing was buried in ruins from the 1400's."

Jemma nodded in response, adding everything he told her into notes on her tablet.

Fitz took a step backwards, before looking between the two of them.

"Shall we begin?"

* * *

"Skye, have you found anything?"

Coulson walked into his daughter's office, carrying the file on the necklace he had shown to his agents just over an hour earlier. He stopped just inside the doorway, and suppressed a smirk as he watched Lance visibly straighten up in the chair he had been lounging in.

Just because Skye was marrying him, didn't mean Phil needed to let up on the fear factor.

"Yeah," she murmured in response, waving him over and turning her laptop around slightly to face him. "Okay, I did some digging into old SHIELD records, looking for any incidents similar, with items turning up within things from the wrong time period, and the only examples I found were objects such as the tesseract, Thor's hammer, and that overkill device thing we found in Peru a few years ago."

"Overkill? Isn't the name itself a bit of an overkill?" Lance muttered, before silencing himself following a look from Coulson.

"Not all these things were weapons," Skye continued, ignoring her fiance's quip. "But they all had a lot of power, and I mean, a lot."

"So you think the necklace could be the same?"

"Potentially? Yes. And they all emitted radiation too, which is either a weird coincidence, or is linked to the power somehow."

"Okay," Phil nodded, resting a hand on the back of her chair. "I've got Fitzsimmons running tests as we speak."

"Okay. The other thing…" she glanced up at Lance at that moment, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket on cue. "Lance spoke to a few contacts who deal in this kind of jewellery..."

Coulson turned to face him expectantly.

"... Yeah" he said, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on Skye's desk. "I spoke with this guy I know back in England. I've dealt with him a few times, sold him a couple of things I've come across, he's sound."

"You trust him?"

"Yeah, I do. Which is saying something really because I don't trust many people in this world -"

"- Hunter, necklace."

"Right, sorry." He glanced up at Skye, and found her suppressing a smirk at their interactions. "My source said he's never seen this particular necklace, either in photographs or in person - I sent him an image of it to be sure - but he did say that a few years ago, a woman came into his shop and described one very similar, said she was looking for a lost family heirloom or something."

"He remembered that after all this time?" Phil asked sceptically. He'd been played along by sources before, being told information just so they could garner information from him about things going on.

"He said he remembered because she was wearing this flowered dress, and apparently she had, and I quote," he added, lifting his fingers into quote marks either side of his head, ""Bambi eyes"."

Phil frowned, and looked at Skye, who was sharing the same expression of recollection as he was. She immediately began typing onto her laptop, digging through the list of people of interest, before stopping on a woman.

"Send him a photograph, see if this is her" she told Lance, before looking back at her dad. "You think it's her?"

"Sounds like it. It's her style, literally."

Skye rolled her eyes at his lame pun, and he grinned back, shrugging his shoulders as if to tell her she'd had it for long enough to be used to it by now.

"Someone want to tell me who the bloody hell that woman is?" Lance asked snarkily, flitting his gaze between the two of them.

"Her name is Raina," Phil told him, ignoring his tone. "She's been on our radar for a number of years. Never done anything wrong, exactly, but she seems to have a strange interest in anything… unusual."

"And you think she's after your necklace for some reason?"

"Honestly? Yes. And if that's the case, then I'd quite like to know what is so damn special about it."

* * *

"So let me get this straight" Trip asked, crossing his arms and watching the two scientists bumbling around in front of him. "It's not a diamond, and it's not glass, and it has the properties normally found in what? Carbyne? Which is from stars?"

"Yes," Fitz replied. "It contains an extremely rare allotrope of carbon, found in stardust."

"If it's so rare, then how is the fact it's a great big stone set in a random necklace even possible?"

Jemma and Fitz looked at one another, before both shrugging simultaneously.

"We don't know" Fitz told him bluntly, before heading back towards where the swabs were running analysis. "That's possibly where the radiation is coming from though."

"But other than that," Jemma informed him, looking back down at the necklace in front of her, "It seems to be just a normal necklace. Nothing seems odd or special about it."

"Is this thing safe to touch and all that?"

"Yes, the radiation is at such a level it is harmless."

"Can I hold it?" he asked, looking between them both. "That box was heavy, and I kinda wanna know how much of the weight is in that stone."

Jemma nodded, allowing him to proceed and Trip reached out, picking up the necklace from where it rested.

"Wow" he murmured, moving it from hand to hand. "It weighs a ton!"

"I know," Fitz replied, not bothering to look up.

"Trip" Jemma said suddenly, taking a step backward. "Put it down, now."

He glanced down at the necklace, to see the beautiful clear stone turning a deep blood red under his hands.

"Shit what!? I didn't do anything!" he exclaimed worriedly, dropping is hastily back onto the table with a clatter. "You saw, it did that on it's own!"

"Yeah I saw" Jemma agreed, grabbing her tablet and immediately setting it onto record, filming the stone getting darker and darker. "Fitz! Call Coulson down her right now."

Fitz fumbled to grab the nearest phone, but before he could, the necklace began to vibrate against the table, the stone seemingly moving of it's own free will.

"What the bloody hell is happening?!" Fitz cried, staring in shock at the deep burgundy of the stone.

The whole room suddenly became illuminated by a blinding light, and there was a piercing silence from outside, before moments later, an almighty boom! resonated throughout the facility, making the building itself physically shake in the ground.

Several windows around them smashed inwards, shards of glass scattering across the laboratory floor, and the three agents moved away as fast as they could.

Squinting through the dazzling whiteness, they all looked at each other in shock, before glancing back at the necklace that had seemed to cause all their problems.

The stone was once more clear, and still, as it had been before.

But the screaming that began from outside, suggested something even worse was about to happen.

* * *

**Thank you for all the wonderful comments on the previous chapter ^.^ Again, please let me know your thoughts if you get the chance! xxx**


	3. Chapter 3

"What the hell was that?!"

Lance was stood in the centre of Skye's office, peering wildly round at the other two agents in there with him. Coulson had gone pale, eyes wide as he looked at the shattered glass littering the floor, where the window pane had been only moments before.

Skye seemed to be in shock slightly, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Are you okay?" Lance asked in a softer tone, walking over to Skye and bending down in front of her, taking both her hands in his own.

She nodded in response, before giving him a small smile, and he reached up to stroke his thumb across her cheek.

"Just a bit shocked, that's all."

She turned to face her dad, who was now in front of where the window had been, peering outside to see if he could work out what the hell had just happened out there.

"Dad," she called, drawing his attention, but not enough that he moved away from the empty window frame. "What was that?"

"I…"

"Earthquake?" Lance suggested skeptically; he knew full well that had not been an earthquake. "Bomb? Death ray?"

"Dad?" Skye's tone was quieter, as she stood from her chair, walking past her fiancé and heading over to where Phil was still unmoving. She stepped through the broken glass scattered across her office carpet, the shards crunching underfoot, before coming to a stop just behind him.

When she glanced over his shoulder, and out into the world, she could see exactly why he hadn't moved in almost thirty seconds.

Where the sky had been clear blue earlier that day, it was now a multitude of colours, a glittering rainbow of crimson and cobalt and violet. The pattern encircled a centre point, at which was blinding white, and falling from that point, was what Skye could only describe as a gigantic ball of white fire.

"Is it a meteorite?" she whispered, her gaze locked with the dazzling sphere that was plummeting towards earth at an ever increasing rate, trailing a pathway of effervescent dust and glitter behind it.

"It reminds me of the portal to Asgard" Phil murmured in response, shaking his head in disbelief. "Except this time it looks like... well, a star, and not a God."

"Not that you know of anyway," Lance chipped in, and Phil finally turned to face him, a strange sense of realisation occurring at his words.

"Hunter, call down to the lab, I want to know if anything has happened regarding that necklace."

Lance stared at him for a moment, frowning, having clearly meant it as a joke or offhand comment, but the look on Coulson's face told him he might not have been too far off the mark. This was SHIELD after all.

He simply nodded, before pulling his phone out of his jeans pocket, and dialling down to Fitzsimmons.

* * *

"Fitz!" Jemma cried, turning to her friend as she realised the phone on his desk was ringing. He was simply standing next to it, apparently ignoring the tone. "Fitz, answer it, it's probably Coulson!"

Fitz seemed to come out of the daze he'd been in moments before, and shook his head, looking worriedly at both Jemma and Trip, before picking up the ringing phone, and holding it to his ear.

"Sir? Oh, hello Hunter. Yes, we're all okay."

Trip crossed his arms, and watched Fitz communicating with the agents upstairs, whilst Jemma turned back to the necklace with a worried frown. She refused to touch it again, just in case, but there was nothing at all to suggest something wrong. For all intents and purposes, it looked exactly the same as it had done earlier that afternoon - just a necklace. If she had seen it in a shop, she would have thought it was costume jewellery, or a piece that once belonged to Royalty.

But that was before it had decided to change colour and apparently trigger an explosion from outside.

"Has the necklace done anything?" Fitz looked up at the other two as he repeated the words he had just been asked, meeting both their gazes and biting his lip slightly. "Funny you should say that..."

He went quiet again, before looking over at the window.

"There's a what in the sky?!"

The three hurried quickly over to the empty pane, before coming to an abrupt halt, staring up into the sky, not one of them believing what they were actually seeing.

"Please tell me that wasn't our fault," Trip murmured, shaking his head as the ball of fire plummeted closer and closer to earth.

From the trajectory is was falling at, it looked as though it would land amidst the mountains, several miles from where they were stationed. Luckily, to their knowledge, that area was unoccupied, so hopefully there would be no casualties.

Jemma couldn't reply, rather she remained exactly where she was, mouth open slightly as she watched the fireball continue to gain momentum, and rush closer to the ground.

It was Fitz who answered his question, hanging up the phone without another word to Hunter on the other end of the line.

"Coulson is coming down now. I think... " he glanced back at the table, staring at the jewellery resting there. "I think we did something we really shouldn't have done."

* * *

Before Skye, Coulson and Hunter had even reached the laboratory downstairs, the "meteorite" as Fitz had described it, reached ground level.

They knew it was going to hit hard, but the moment of impact succeeded even the scientists' expectations.

If they had thought the trembling of the ground before had been bad, this was ten times worse.

Every last shard of glass remaining in the windows was freed by the sonic vibrations, and the blinding light of the star as it fell through their atmosphere forced all of them to once more look away and close their eyes.

They felt the impact in each bone of their bodies.

The entire building began to shudder again, items falling from shelves and clattering to the laboratory floor, and the deep sound of the ground crumbling away into a crater at the landing site was audible miles away.

There was a ripple effect they could almost see through the air, but as soon as it had started, everything stopped once more.

The silence overwhelmed them all, and the looked at each other in surprise.

"It's down" Trip muttered, scratching his head, before turning back towards the window.

Where the aurora of colour had filled the sky, there was now nothing but blue.

As if the events of before never were.

* * *

"Okay" Coulson announced, once all six of them were in what was left of the second largest laboratory in the facility. "Whatever that was, has now impacted earth; we need to get to the crash site immediately to ensure firstly, that it hasn't caused any casualties, and b) to keep tourists away. Something like this will attract a lot of attention, so we need some kind of cover story going out."

"On it" Skye replied, grabbing the tablet off Jemma's desk, and immediately beginning to type up a story about a meteorite entering the atmosphere. She would explain away the rainbow hues of the sky as water droplets from the space rock travelling across the path of light from the sun - just like a regular rainbow - and the sounds as the rock breaking the sound barrier.

"Trip," Coulson continued, "I need you to go and find either Agent Ward or Agent Morse, or both. We're going to need to take a team down to the site, and I want at least two specialists accompanying, just on the off-chance this turns into another Loki-type incident."

Trip nodded, and left the room, the glass doors closing behind him. They had fortunately remained in one piece, although the left one had a large web-like crack along the surface.

Once the doors had closed behind the agent, Coulson turned to Fitz and Simmons, before glancing at the necklace.

"I want you guys to pack that thing back into a box, and secure it somewhere here it isn't going to be disturbed. We'll discuss what happened with it later."

Fitz nodded, and proceeded to set about finding the box it had been brought to them in.

"Then I want you to grab whatever tools you might need, and meet us out front in ten minutes. We need to get there fast."

"Yes Sir," Jemma replied, eyes scanning the room for where their instruments and devices were now strewn across the floor. "Anything in particular we'll require?"

"Something to take samples, photographic equipment… bring the DWARVES too."

Jemma nodded as Fitz had done, before moving around Coulson and picking various items off the floor, placing them onto a work-space in front of her.

"What am I doing?" Lance asked from where he was leaning against a table.

"Get back in touch with your little jeweler friend. I want to know if there's something he hasn't told us about Raina, and why she wanted that necklace so badly. Don't mention anything about what's happened here."

"Am I coming to the crash-site?" he asked hopefully, looking over at Skye to find her glancing between him and her dad. "I mean, you never know when you might require a man of my skill-set."

Phil sighed; working with Hunter was one thing, but the fact he was going to have to put up with him for the rest of his life was another. "Yes Hunter, you can come. Ring your contact en-route."

Lance grinned at Skye, who rolled her eyes fondly at him, before turning the tablet to face her dad, showing him an article on a local news-site.

"This thing's already making headlines, we'll need to get there quick."

"Then let's go."

* * *

The drive to the crash site took approximately half an hour. And that was with both Ward and Trip keeping their feet firmly on the gas as they led each SHIELD vehicle up through the mountains.

In the end, Trip had managed to convince both Agent Ward and Agent Morse to join them on their latest assignment, and with the two of them, the total number of agents in their group was up to eight - including Hunter.

They split between two SUV's, with Trip, Jemma, Bobbi and Fitz in one car, and Ward, Coulson, Skye and Lance following in the second.

On their journey towards the site, they passed several people clearly on their own way to investigate what had fallen. Groups of men, carrying cameras and rucksacks, plus various tourists who had obviously just stopped whatever they were doing, and headed up there spontaneously.

Coulson made a mental note to set up a cordoned off restriction zone, once they had worked out just how large the crater site was going to be. There was nothing he could do about physically getting people to stop going into the mountains, but he could sure as hell keep them out of his investigation.

As it turned out, they reached the outer rings of the zone pretty soon. Trees were singed, the ground smoking slightly, and the further in they got, the worse things looked.

Everything was burned, blackened and turned to ash where the rippling waves and heat had literally decimated them where they stood. The ground under the tyres crunched and groaned as they drove closer, and as he looked out of the window, Coulson noticed the sandy pathway was littered with strange markings.

He'd seen those before.

Skye was staring out of the opposite window, and one look in her direction told Phil that she had recognised them too.

They were the markings that had appeared when Thor first descended from Asgard.

The two teams drove in silence, until they finally reached the main crater site, and could go no further without dropping over the edge and falling several metres.

There were still several trees and plants smouldering around them, and as the agents climbed out of their respective vehicles, feet crunching into the earth below, the air was filled with the toxic scent of burning wood.

The ground was completely covered in intricate designs, swirling and replicating themselves all around. Fitz pulled a camera from the back of one of the cars, and took several photographs of the patterns, automatically backing them up to a SHIELD server at headquarters as he did so.

But there was no massive lump of rock. No meteorite for them to examine.

The team simply stared in wonder at the centre of the crater, where a lone woman stood, black hair trailing behind her in the breeze, like a warrior, poised ready for battle.

* * *

**Thank you to everyone for your lovely reviews. I try to reply to them all, but obviously I can't do that with guest reviews, but thank you :) **

**Please let me know any thoughts or comments below!**


	4. Chapter 4

"That's not even possible" Trip muttered, more to himself than to the group of agents stood around him. "She would have been killed by the impact."

Fitz and Lance both nodded simultaneously, agreeing in silence to his words.

"Sir," Ward called, taking a few steps closer to where Coulson was observing the scene in front of them. "With respect, I think we need to consider the idea she came down with the meteorite."

"Agreed" he murmured in response.

"I would suggest sending a tactical team in to subdue her as a precaution."

Coulson turned to face him, and shook his head. Skye wandered over to join them both, tying her hair up behind her to stop the wind blowing it into her face.

"She currently is showing no signs of being a danger," Coulson replied, gazing once more into the distance, where the woman seemed to be watching them. "We currently have no need to subdue her. But I agree with the precaution, we need to know who she is, what she wants, and whether she poses any threat."

"Send in the welcome wagon" Skye murmured, back on her tablet ensuring no more headlines had appeared.

"Agent Morse" Coulson announced, turning back to him group of agents, who gathered around him, the heat of the sun not putting them off their mission.

"Yes Sir."

"I want yourself to join Agent Triplett and I in making first contact with her."

Bobbi nodded in response, and Trip opened the boot of one of the vehicles. "ICERs or guns, Sir?"

"Take both, but hold ICErs as a priority. We don't want to harm her unless there is a serious endangerment to life."

Trip nodded again, and set about sorting through the weapons they had in the back of the SUV; he handed a couple to Bobbi, put a few aside for Coulson, and chose his own.

"Fitz, Simmons," Coulson continued, turning to the younger scientists. "I want you to start running every analysis you can of the area. The ground, the remains of foliage, air quality, everything. Get the results backed up to HQ as soon as possible."

The two agreed, and headed to the other vehicle.

"Agent Ward, take the other car, run the perimeter... take Hunter with you. Make sure nobody comes within five miles of this site. Any intruders, send them away."

Lance jumped into the car beside them, followed by Ward, who revved the engine before they drove away at speed.

"And Skye, keep the press at bay, dig into past files about this location, similar events in SHIELD history, and everything Fitzsimmons come up with... help them if they need it."

"Cool."

Coulson turned back to Bobbi and Trip, the latter of who handed him two weapons - one lethal, which he put the safety onto and slipped into the waistband of his trousers, and one non-lethal, which he held onto tightly.

"Let's go."

* * *

"She hasn't moved much since we arrived, has she?" Jemma commented, as she swiped across the tablet in her hand to open up the camera. "You think it's shock?"

"If she was hit directly by a meteor -" Fitz started, squinting at the patterns trailing through the sandy ground beneath them.

"- the meteor that doesn't seem to exist -" Skye added absentmindedly.

"- Then she would be dead." he continued. "But if she was hit by shockwaves, at a close enough range…" Fitz shrugged, looking again back across the plains to where Coulson, Bobbi, and Trip were making their way over to the woman.

"If she was directly hit by shockwaves at a high enough level, she could be suffering from extreme internal injuries, such as bleeding, damage to her lungs," Jemma finished for him, taking a photograph of the pattern in front of them.

"She looks pretty much unharmed though" Skye commented, watching warily at the scene unfolding below them; she trusted her dad, knew he was the best agent they had, and knew Trip and Bobbi were exceptional too, but there was still something nerve-wracking about watching them heading over to greet a potential… alien?

"Physically, there wouldn't be visible damage unless she had fallen to the floor or been hit by shrapnel" Jemma replied, adding more photographs into the database, as Fitz opened up the case containing the DWARFS.

"But I mean, if she did come down, then she must be either Hulk-strong to survive that drop, or she landed like the Asgardians do?"

"Guess we'll find out soon enough."

* * *

Coulson walked towards the woman with purpose. He didn't want to appear intimidated by her, or afraid of what they might find, but he couldn't deny that he was a little apprehensive about the upcoming encounter.

The last time he'd greeted somebody like this, they had been an Asgardian God.

Trip walked to his left, and Bobbi on his right, and the three headed across the sand towards the lone woman, who had yet to move from her position.

The sound of their footsteps crunching through the sand was the only soundtrack to their journey, the anticipation of who they were meeting and where they had come from, flowing through their veins.

"Do you think she's okay?" Bobbi murmured, breaking Phil out of his lapse in concentration, and causing him to look back up to the woman in front of them. She was looking across the floor for something, moving cautiously around and peering amongst the sand for some unknown object; she seemed unbothered by their arrival.

"I don't know" he replied honestly. Physically, she looked okay; from their position about ten metres from her, he could see no visible signs of blood, no limping or observable trauma. "But we're about to find out."

She was facing away from them when the three agents reached a spot maybe five metres from her. Coulson coughed slightly to get her attention.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?"

She spun around to face him, dark hair sweeping around her face, and standing in a warrior-like pose, hand automatically reaching for her sword. Coulson swallowed, reminded instantly of the moment he had come face to face with Lady Sif and the warriors three, when they descended from Asgard to join Thor.

She was definitely a warrior, of some kind.

The clothing she wore spoke of battles; boots laced up her calves, trousers so tight they looked painted on, and shimmering silver armour across her torso. She held a grip over her holster, and Phil could sense immediately by her attire that she was someone of importance.

But the clothing was not reminiscent of Asgard. It was different, somehow, in a way he could not word.

The woman stared through him, as though Phil wasn't even there.

"Are you okay? Are you injured?"

She flicked her gaze back towards him, molten brown eyes interrogating his soul. There was something in her look, something deep within her eyes that spoke of darkness, of past trauma. She had the appearance of somebody who had seen things many should not have to witness.

"This place" she murmured quietly, the words falling from her lips and trailing away in the wind. "What is this realm?"

"Earth" Trip replied, keeping one hand firmly on the ICER by his side. "You not from here?"

She shook her head. "I was called here, from Stormhold."

"Called?" Bobbi asked warily, shooting glances around them at the scene of devastation.

Phil made a mental note to tell Skye to search for any previous mentions of this "Stormhold" in the SHIELD databases; in all his years of active duty, he had not heard of such a place.

The woman looked at Bobbi, before tilting her head up a little, indicating her agreement to the previous question.

"So," Coulson nodded, trying his best to make her feel at ease - he could almost visibly see the tension radiating from her. "Any idea why, or how, you were… called?"

She paused, fingers absently tracing the handle of her sword, as though mentally working out whether she was in danger from the people before her or not.

She apparently decided she was safe, for her hand removed itself from the handle, but Coulson had a pretty strong feeling she'd be able to take it out and attack within seconds.

"I know only that I seek a stone."

Trip glanced at Coulson with a frown - they both knew exactly which stone she was after.


End file.
